Although not strictly for forensic purposes, visualization tools such as the ones discussed here can be very useful for visualizing large data sets. As forensic practitioners need to process more and more data, it is likely that some of the techniques implemented by these tools will need to be adopted.

: Originally developed by the [http://public.research.att.com/areas/visualization/ AT&T Information Visualization Gorup], designed for drawing connected graphs of nodes and edges. Neato is a similar system but does layout based on a spring model. Can produce output as PostScript, PNG, GIF, or as an annotated graph file with the locations of all of the objects---ideal for drawing in a GUI. Runs from the command line on Unix, Windows and Mac, although there is also a [http://www.pixelglow.com/graphviz/ MacOS GUI version].

Revision as of 11:48, 20 April 2006

Although not strictly for forensic purposes, visualization tools such as the ones discussed here can be very useful for visualizing large data sets. As forensic practitioners need to process more and more data, it is likely that some of the techniques implemented by these tools will need to be adopted.

Open Source Visualization Toolkits

Originally developed by the AT&T Information Visualization Gorup, designed for drawing connected graphs of nodes and edges. Neato is a similar system but does layout based on a spring model. Can produce output as PostScript, PNG, GIF, or as an annotated graph file with the locations of all of the objects---ideal for drawing in a GUI. Runs from the command line on Unix, Windows and Mac, although there is also a MacOS GUI version.